Buying Expressionism
Paintings
When speaking on buying paintings of the Expressionist
movement, it is always a good idea to review what elements make
Expressionism unique, and to gain an understanding of some of
the artists representative of this particular artistic
movement. The agreed upon intention of Expressionist
artwork is not reproduce a subject accurately, but to instead
portray the inner state of the artist, with a tendency to
distort reality for an emotional effect. The movement is
closely associated with its’ beginnings in Germany, and has a
few different but overlapping schools of thought within.
The term Expressionism was first used to describe the
movement in the magazine produced in 1911 called “Der Sturm”,
and was usually linked to paintings and graphic work that
challenged academic traditions at the time. The
philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche later helped to define the area
of modern expressionism better by clarifying the movement’s
links to ancient art before any more modern interpretation had,
and applied his own unique philosophy to the movement. He
has been quoted stating that disordered and ordered elements
are present in all works of art, but that the basic traits of
Expressionism lay in the mainly disordered aspects.
The Expressionist point of view was usually conveyed through
the use of bold colors, distorted forms, and a lack of
perspective. Generally, a piece of expressionistic art is
one that is expressive of intense emotion, and much of this
kind of artwork occurs during times of social upheaval.
Though it can be argued that an artist is expressive by nature,
and that all artwork is truly expressionist, there are many who
consider the movement particularly communicative of
emotion. Later on, artists like Kandinsky changed 20th
century Expressionist work through the formation of Abstract
Expressionism.
The art historian Antonín Matějček was elemental in coining
the term as the opposite to the Impressionist movement as well,
and though Expressionism seems well defined as an artistic
movement, there have never been a group of artists that called
themselves Expressionists. The movement was primarily
German and Austrian, and many of the different groups of
thought were based around Germany at the time. Another
artistic movement that heavily influenced Expressionism was
Fauvism. This kind of artwork is characterized by
primitive, less naturalistic forms, and includes the works of
famed painters Paul Gauguin and Henri Matisse.
With this influence firmly in place, Expressionism grew into
striking compositions that focused on representing emotional
reactions through powerful use of color and dynamic approaches
with subject matter, and seemed to counter the qualities
centered on by the French Impressionism of the time.
Where French Impressionism was to seek rendering the visual
appearance of objects, Expressionism became an opposing
movement seeking to capture emotions and subjective
interpretation, and it was not important to reproduce a
visually pleasing interpretation of the matter that the
painting represented.
Expressionism has crossed over into many differing fields of
artistic vision, with sculpture and filmmaking being primary
examples today, and have influenced many people throughout the
course of its’ existence as a movement in art. These
visions have combined over time to create the comprehensive
idea of what Expressionism has become, and many people have
found this type of art very appealing and eye-catching.
Throughout this century, much Expressionistic artwork has come
to be representative of what art can come to be, and many
people have been influenced by this very emotional artwork.
|